Saturday, June 10, 2017

Strap on the greaves and ignore the ankle biters

More on why Trump must use and abuse social media (beyond psychologically nut-tapping cucks and leftists every time he does so):

The cable primetime viewership figure comes from adding together Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC viewers. Throwing in lesser watched networks like C-SPAN and Fox Business still doesn't even get the total close to 10 million.

The newspaper figure comes from the weekend circulation numbers--hard copy and digital subscriptions combined--of the 50 largest newspapers in the US.

Yes, there are some people being double-counted among social media followers, but there are also plenty of circulation figures being double-(and triple- and decuple-)counted in the newspaper circulation number as well (ie, hotels carrying copies of the WSJ, the NYT, USA Today, and the metro area paper).

While Trump is an effortless natural when it comes to utilizing new media communication tools, his perceived power of old media is greatly exaggerated. It is so not only on account of being antiquated (no one under 50 watches TV news or reads newspapers) but also because of Trump's unique personal history. Leveraging old media against entrenched political opposition was vital in allowing him to make his mark on the skylines of cities like Chicago, Las Vegas, and of course New York. His national celebrity was made on old media, and he is allegedly obsessed with collecting old media documents featuring himself.

Putting old media in proper perspective is a job for someone close who came of age after the old media's moribundity had become apparent (Donald Jr. or Stephen Miller).

Political dissolution is coming to the US. It's a question of when, not if. The country is too linguistically, ethnically, religiously, culturally, economically, racially, morally, and geographically divided to function as a single political entity.

There will never again be 80%+ approval ratings for national political figures in the US as currently constituted. Reaching out to the opposition emboldens that opposition and enervates one's own supporters, as Trump has learned the hard way over the last few months.

14 comments:

I know Trump's mocked non-Fox news outlets for low ratings. How 'bout just ignoring them altogether? The greatest sign of disrespect is to ignore something. Didn't Agnostic talk about eliminating the daily press conferences altogether? Trump ought to say that his actions speak for themselves. Besides, because of PC and a hostile press, it's tough for his surrogates to finesse Trump's ideas and goals. When we've got a conventional president, everyone on either side is on their team's page. They know the script. Team Bush, Team Obama etc. all had the talking points memorized, some of which came from the bowels of the Pentagon.

The lamented "chaos" of Trump's WH is the inevitable consequence of someone who isn't marching in unison with his side. When his cabinet or one of his press handlers can't keep continuity straight, it's all the more reason to stop talking to the press and giving them opportunities to poke holes in the structure of Trump's Admin in an effort to portray Trump as a buffoon with no leadership or coherence, who makes it up as he goes along. In spite of the fact that for quite some time, Trump consistently said that Americans were being screwed by bad policies RE: trade, foreign engagements, etc.

I'd wish that more of Trump's people would confront the media by telling them: "you're more interested in impressing cultural elite friends than you are in caring about ordinary people". Or, "why didn't you question Obama more often"? "Where was the skepticism about Obamacare"?

WRT instability, I wish I'd saved this article about how every administration has had apparent problems finding and retaining well-motivated, palatable, and honest personnel. Even successful/popular presidents have had to deal with turnover, discord, and scandal within their team. That's just the way it is.

Not an original point here, but Trump's Admin. is being held to a ridiculously high standard of rigor by not just liberals and cucks, but even his purist base. Every single mistake or lie, or (so far) unfulfilled promise, becomes some kind of crisis. And that's when something legit wrong happens! God knows how much total BS is over-sold (some of it being Deep State concern trolling, like claiming that Trump's in-laws and right-hand men are becoming estranged, defying Trump's lifelong loyalty habits). Corey Lewandowski recently confirmed that he's still in Trump's orbit, and he's stuck up for Trump in the media before that.

One thing remarkable about Trump is just how few of his friends turned their back on him, when presumably the press was beating down their doors to get juicy gossip. Even Howard Stern, who came out against Trump politically, said that he wasn't going to give the press access to off-the-air tapes out of respect for his privacy. Now, if Trump was such a horrible literal HItler POS, I'd imagine that Stern would've been glad to hand the tapes over.

Do you read most of the articles in the paper you're subscribed to? Mileage will vary, but I suspect the median person who follows Trump on social media makes it a point to check out what he is saying more frequently than they check out what X editorial writer is writing in the USA Today.

The mainstream media might not have much reach when looking at actual viewers, but they still set the agenda for what is discussed. According to a Fox News Opinion poll 61% of Americans are "extremely" or "very" concerned about "Russia meddling" in the election. This is higher than illegal immigration. Russian meddling is entirely a media driven fictional news story yet the majority of Americans are gravely concerned about it. If you looked at opinion polls circa 2002, 2003 "Iraq WMDs" was a huge concern. They were a huge concern because of media propaganda not because they actually existed in reality. The media could talk about invaders from Mars for 6 straight months and the majority of Americans would be very worried about a Martian invasion.

The vast majority of Americans today are nothing more than fatted cattle. And fatted cattle are good for only one thing.

Trump needs to get back into the feeder mindset. It was joked during the campaign--primaries and general--that Trump was already the acting president because he controlled the subjects that were being discussed. Mock the Russia stuff every single time, and when condescending to mention it do so in a dismissive way, like an adult humoring children, etc.

Chill out. I heard that O'reilly's average viewer age was like 68. And his time slot peers in the MSM were only moderately younger (MSNBC being the youngest at like 58).

With all due respect to Boomers, lamesstream TV news is getting about as dusty as the Boomers themselves. The 60's and 70's conditioned older generations to believe in the power and virtue of old-school media. The internet/blogging reporting culture really took off in the 2000's due to both greater consumer access and the Bush era bringing about greater intensity and partisanship, and just plain alienation from mainstream political culture as elites looked the other way during the phony build up to Iraq, Wall Street excess, sub-prime mortgage tom-foolery, etc. In 2002, the youngest Boomers were 36, far too old to really let it sink in that the elites at all levels, including the media, were failing us. Now I know some Boomers come close to feeling that way, but it remains all too easy to just turn the idiot box on rather than seek out underground sources on the internet.

"According to a Fox News Opinion poll 61% of Americans are "extremely" or "very" concerned about "Russia meddling" in the election"

People need to wake up, you're right. I'm guessing that when cocooning ebbs in the 2020's, people will stop being so quick to buy a lot of this crap. BTW, what percentage of those people are hardcore partisan liberals in denial of Trump's appeal to many people? 35%? 45%? In more equitable times (the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, even the 80's) people aren't such sore losers. The mania for questioning election results really dates back to 2000 and has never really left us.

Boomers remain more trusting than younger generations; X-ers and Millennials are more territorial and clannish, they don't trust elite level media culture, preferring to instead ally themselves with a certain clique on the internet (thru blogs, social media, twitter, and the like). BTW, how many of the anti-Trump tweet crowd is older? Younger people are more likely to be sympathetic to the idea that Trump himself can convey his ideas and feelings via tweets; he doesn't need gate keepers or greater calculation.

I tend to agree with your sentiments on the polarity in politics due to non-homogeneous societies. However, it seems our fight at the moment is with other whites, the minorities still do not make up a large enough population to have such an effect. If you picked off a few million whites from the Left there would never be another Democrat elected. Its the whites that have become less reliable in voting our best interests. I think this is the real issue that needs to be addressed politically. I think the new right is doing a good job red pilling people, we need to step it up or else we will be consumed by the muds in the voting booth in short order.

Do you read Z-Man? If not, I think this post will resonate with you (it almost reads as though he has you in mind though he doesn't mention you by name).

Frank,

Right, it's the cold civil war in which non-whites are pawns used by Goodwhites against we Badwhites. The 60% that Romney and Trump both got among whites (albeit different slices of whites) isn't going to cut it. Minority voter depression actually was a major reason Trump won where Romney couldn't, but of course Trump's win is only a couple election cycles away from being infeasible.

Being vindictive is not gonna cut it. As I've said before/elsewhere, a time of crisis forces 2+ generations to knock it off so as to create a better future. Which, by default, isn't going to do that much to boost elder generations (the pie is only so big, and society after a crisis period usually believes that investing in those under 40/their families is more important than opulence of the gray haired set). So, for example, after the Missionairy and Lost generation led G.I.s and Silents thru the depression and WW2, it created a post 1945 society in which elderly Missionaries held onto just enough physical/financial security and were admired for their wisdom. Losts, on the other hand, were largely broken down (aside from a handful of big winners) but nevertheless felt like the world that had produced their hard luck/hard livin' generation had been cleaned up.

I do try to be honest about what makes generations tick, but it's not out of vengeance. Neil Howe said that Boomers need to be more accommodating of X-ers to get more of them in the game. After all, Boomers are now in their 50's-70's. Somebody needs to pick up the slack. Every day that goes by, that sees Boomers not getting over their egos and X-ers not improving their attitude, is a wasted day. And there's not many days left to waste before decades of complacency collapse under their own weight..

BTW, the non-stop arguing/finger pointing that you see among those over 40 is pretty embarrassing and damning at this point. It's time to grow up. Life isn't (wasn't?) fair; it may never be "fair" in the sense that you understand it. Accept that you're likely never going to get your way totally or be able to spend that much time on top. It's time to start thinking (and caring) about other people. When we see elites (the best we can do?) yelling and swearing in public, it bodes ill.

WRT cycles of public disorder, there's about a 50-60 year gap between events. 1860's (civil war), 1910's-1920's (violent labor disputes/nativists battling immigrant subversives), 1960's/early 1970's (race riots, war protests, campus unrest), and now in the 2010's (BLM/Anti-Fa against anti-globalists/anti-multiculturalists). It seems that a combination of overall crisis and public disorder is about the worst kind of environment to be in.

The civil war was so badly mishandled by elder generations that it created decades of bitterness and hardship. Whereas in the 20's and 60's, society was able to get thru a flare-up of unrest because we weren't in the midst of a general crisis of conflict and leadership (leadership and the public in the 20's, and 60's/70's, capably resolved public tensions since they happened BEFORE an overall crisis (Depression/WW2 in the 30's-40's, Global foreign policy discord/post '07 recession in the 2000's/2010's).

Now we're in a civil war era atmosphere of mass disgruntled violence/disorder, while our elites are busy trying to handle terrible problems decades in the making.

To sum it up, society can't tolerate a (mostly uncalled for) truculent public and an elite pre-occupied with serious problems decades in the making. As in the civil war, modern elites are overwhelmed by dealing with the effect's of previous eras while idiots break crap in the streets. Imagine if G.I.s during WW2 were busy with riots, protests, radical politics, and the like.

Bingo, we got it. Finally. There are cycles of crises related to society's overall functioning (the mistakes of an unraveling era eventually create an untenable situation that society subsequently confronts in crisis era). But there are also cycles of public disorder (various groups don't see eye to eye and feel aggrieved, eventually spurring both sides to publicly express hostility and rage).

Thing is, crisis eras are but one quarter of a historical cycle lasting around 80-100 years. So we a get a high era, than an awakening, then an unraveling, then a crisis. If the crisis is effectively resolved, the 4 part cycle begins anew. What I've now put together is that the biggest threat to crisis resolution is dickheads (most of whom are young, often cheered on by idealistic or mischievous older advisors e.g. Saul Alinsky) breaking things and skulls in the streets often under the guise of moral/political virtue. We couldn't deal with the civil war crisis properly because various factions, often at the behest of hothead leaders, were causing so much goddamn trouble. If people had been more calm and patient, much unnecessary bloodshed would've been averted.

Oh, and we shouldn't be so hard on Boomers for their musings on such a "heavy" time as the 60's. After all, periods of intense unrest don't happen that often. Also, since a real crisis was nestled 40-50 years later (9/11, '08 meltdown, creeping Islam), it's easier for Boomers feel emotions ranging from bemusement, to mild embarrassment, to joy over the period.

The current period of unrest if purty heavy, too. But it's happening amid a series of crises. There's little idealism or hope left. Soros like vultures seem to be staging and exploiting much of the conflict, too. That's a scary thought: periods of both pubic disorder and general crisis let sociopaths get away with a lot.